Searle
is a recurrent boss in the Contra series. It is Emperor Demon Gava's own self-sentient and mobile brain, who won't stop fighting even if its body has been destroyed. Description Living Brain Organism Searle is Emperor Demon Gava's own self-sentient brain. It made its first appearance in Contra III: The Alien Wars, where it becomes exposed after its owner's body is destroyed. A rather disturbing enemy consisting of a living giant brain bearing a single eye on its center. It has the ability to levitate and to defend itself via a wide repertoire of attacks. While Searle does not attack directly, the balls rotating around the brain, will decide what attack Searle would perform. Searle is invincible at this point so the player has to shoot one of the balls to get started in a lottery fashion. Depending on what balls players end up getting by shooting, the battle against Searle can either be very hard or very easy. Here are rundowns on the balls: left Shield Ball - about five or six gray balls will surround players and slowly begin to converge and tighten like a noose until they eventually kill the player. Hyper Crash Bomb helps greatly here, otherwise players probably will not be able to destroy all the balls as they are very resilient, making loss of lives inevitable. left Snake Ball - it creates a snake made of the said balls that rapidly wander around the screen in a wavy serpentine locomotion left and right for 30 seconds or so. This attack pattern is incredibly fast, resulting at least one death for most players. Players better have excellent timing and dexterity to survive this nightmarish pattern. Players should do whatever it takes to avoid getting this ball. left Stone Ball - aka rolling ball. One of the tougher ball attack pattern but definitely not the hardest one in the game. The brain will move all the way to the lower right side of the screen and two or three (depending on the difficulty level) balls will start leap-rolling towards players. The trick here for players is to time their jumps so he can get over the first ball well enough, but with time to spare so he can get over the next one the same way. left Blue Ball - second hardest attack pattern. These indestructible blue balls of death linger very long and bounce around unpredictably and erratically. There are no best strategies to this tough attack pattern other than just dodging as best as players can. This pattern is also bound to result at least in one death. left Eye Ball - almost the same as blue balls in terms of patterns except that these balls can be destroyed, which makes the battle much easier. left Thorn Ball - it goes without saying that this is the jackpot of the eight balls and players should try aiming for this ball as much as possible. While this is the best ball one can ever get due to power-ups being thrown around on players, Searle churns spikes along with power-up items so there is still a slight chance players can die. left Walker Ball - called as Leg Balls by players. Searle grows a pair of legs made of balls and moves left and right in an attempt to stomp players. When standing on edges of left and right, their stomps can be avoided by jumping (usually their legs do not reach edges but one never knows). Because they move and left and right in random manner and in a very tight pace, staying under their legs in between are unwise. left Brain Ball - a group of balls made of smaller brains surround Searle. These balls do nothing other than protecting Searle with their bodies. This is the easiest non-bonus ball anyone can get, as they can be destroyed and when they are destroyed, Searle is left vulnerable momentarily. Every time ball attacks are spent, Searle phases out momentarily, then reappearing at the spot it phased out, resumes rolling its attack balls, repeating the cycle. Searle is also known for having a second form known as Six Men Feromedos —although this has only been shown in Contra III—, where it summons and clads itself inside a hard shell bearing alien motifs which also gives it the ability to climb on walls at great speed thanks to the four beast-like limbs it counts with. Being that this fiend is even at an inner level than Gava himself, it could be considered to be the true mastermind behind the alien invasion that took part in the Alien Wars, the same way as Gomeramos King was in the first Contra after defeating Demon Dragon God Java. Appearances ''Contra III: The Alien Wars First appearance of this enemy in the series. Brain Organism Searle appears after defeating Emperor Demon Gava, being his own self-sentient brain. The boss features several possible phases it can go through during the fight. Eight orbs will appear spinning around it; when shot, the orb that was hit will determine its next attack. After going through it, it will go back to its spinning orbs phase and the player has to hit another one. The player can choose which orb to hit if they have good aim or wait for the spinning to slow down. This can be used as a strategy, as some attacks may provide power-ups or bombs. The boss is only vulnerable when in an attack pattern. Once the brain has been defeated, a military helicopter will breach the aliens' nest from above and the player will latch onto it. Unless playing the game on a lower difficulty, the still-living brain will summon and clad itself inside hard armor bearing four tentacle arms and proceed to chase the helicopter up the way out in a final confrontation. The boss attacks from below with tackles and tentacle strikes; the player has to jump when necessary while also trying to find a moment to aim down and shoot at the creature. Neo Contra Searle appears after defeating Emperor Demon Gava. If the sight of a giant floating brain bearing an eye on its center wasn't disturbing enough, this time around the organism features a child-like humanoid face underneath. Unlike its ''Contra III incarnation, it does not use the spinning orbs but sends out mines which rotate around the room. It also sends out energy balls that rotate around the room, like the mines, but they also go outward. In addition to those attacks, it shoots fireballs at the player and fires exploding balls as well. Searle also remains completely stationary, unlike its last appearance. ''Contra 4 Although Searle itself does not appear in ''Contra 4, Black Viper's Gava-like final form has its weak point being a Searle-like brain, although it lacks the spinning orb attacks. Black Viper will sometimes retreat upward and send copies of the brain, some of which retain one of the attacks Searle had: the bouncing eyeball orb attack. However, the brain is completely dependent and vital to Black Viper, and she dies when the player shoots the brain enough, which can be done by shooting one of her serpentine arms until it blows up, leaving a spot they can grapple on to, and shooting the Searle-like organism. Notes *Brain Organism Searle and Six Men Feromedos do not appear In the Game Boy version, Contra: The Alien Wars. The game ends immediately after defeating Emperor Demon Gava on any difficulty setting. Trivia *Although Searle does not appear in Contra 4, one of Black Viper's brain attacks is the eyeball orb attack from Contra III, which sends bouncing eyeballs downward (miniature brains in Contra 4). *Searle may have been inspired by the Xaerous Brain or the Brain Golem from the Gradius and Salamander series, another two Konami franchises. But unlike Xaerous Brain in Gradius series, this nasty brain puts up one hell of a vicious fight. See also *Emperor Demon Gava *Red Falcon Gallery Searle - 01.png|Searle without its balls. contra_boss_balls.jpg|Searle's eight balls of death Brain Organism Searle Contra Advance.png|All eight options shown during the final battle. Brain Organism Searle Contra Advance forme 2.png|The faces with tentacles in the mouths bear a resemblance to the final boss in Contra: Hard Corps. Searle - 03.png|''Neo Contra'' Searle - 04.png|''Neo Contra'' Black Viper - 05.png|Inside of Black Viper's third form in Contra 4, which resembles Emperor Demon Gava. Category:Aliens Category:Antagonists Category:Deceased characters Category:Enemies Category:Male characters Category:Contra 4 bosses Category:Neo Contra bosses Category:The Alien Wars bosses Category:The Alien Wars EX bosses